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How-To Geek

Even though we cover plenty of other topics, Windows has always been a primary focus around here, and we’ve got one of the largest collections of Windows-related how-to articles anywhere. Here’s the fifty best Windows articles that we wrote in 2010.

How to Customize Your Windows 7 Taskbar Icons for Any App

Would you like to change out the icons on your taskbar with a beautiful set of icons that all go together? Here’s how you can change out the random candy-colored icons for a stylish icon set of your choice.

Change the Windows 7 Taskbar Color

Sure, you can hack Windows and install a custom theme if you really wanted to, or pay for a software package to do it for you. What you might not know is that you can use a silly trick to change the color of the taskbar with no added software—without changing your window color.

How To Enable Macbook-Style Two Finger Scrolling on Windows Laptops

After using my new Macbook Air for the last week, it’s almost painful to switch back to my PC laptop—using two finger scrolling has become second nature. Here’s how to get the same feature on (most) Windows laptops.

How to Crack Your Forgotten Windows Password

Here at How-To Geek, we’ve covered many different ways to reset your password for Windows—but what if you can’t reset your password? Or what if you’re using drive encryption that would wipe out your files if you changed the password? It’s time to crack the password instead.

Make Your PC Shut Down at Night (But Only When You’re Not Using It)

If you normally like to power off your PC when you’re not using it, do you ever forget and leave it on? Here’s how to configure Windows to automatically power down at night, but only if you’re not using the PC at the time.

How to Manually Repair Windows 7 Boot Loader Problems

If you’re having boot problems on your Windows PC, it’s often helpful to repair the MBR (Master Boot Record) to restore the Windows 7 boot loader—and you can do it easily from the Windows installation disc.

How To Uninstall, Disable, and Remove Windows Defender. Also, How Turn it Off

If you’re already running a full anti-malware suite, you might not even realize that Windows Defender is already installed with Windows, and is probably wasting precious resources. Here’s how to get rid of it.

Add “My Dropbox” to Your Windows 7 Start Menu

Over here at How-To Geek, we’re huge fans of Dropbox, the amazingly fast online file sync utility, but we’d be even happier if we could natively add it to the Windows 7 Start Menu, where it belongs. And today, that’s what we’ll do.

How to Change the Priority of Wired/Wireless Network Cards in Windows

Do you ever plug in your wired network card while your wireless card is still enabled? Ever wonder how Windows chooses which one to use? Here’s how to see the default priority—and how to change it if you want.

Make Windows 7 Start Menu Search Find Your Applications Faster

When you first get your shiny new Windows 7 PC, typing anything into the Start Menu search box returns exactly what you want instantly—but what about once you’ve built up loads of files? It tends to get really slow, but here’s how to fix it.

How To Setup a USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 7

If you have a netbook and would like to upgrade it to Windows 7, you may be wondering how to do it without a clunky external DVD Drive. Today we show you how to install Windows 7 from a USB flash drive.

Giving a computer to somebody else? Maybe you’re putting it out on Craigslist to sell to a stranger—either way, you’ll want to make sure that your drive is completely wiped, scrubbed, and clean of any personal data. Here’s the easy way to do it.

Remove Ubuntu or XP from the Windows 7 Boot Menu

If you’ve ever used a dual-boot system and then removed one of the operating systems, it can still show up in Windows 7’s boot menu. We’ll show you how to get rid of old entries and speed up the boot process.

Complete Guide to Networking Windows 7 with XP and Vista

Since there are three versions of Windows out in the field these days, chances are you need to share data between them. Today we show how to get each version to be share files and printers with one another.

How To Disable or Enable the Homegroup Feature in Windows 7

Have you ever used the Homegroup feature in Windows 7? It’s a great way to share files and printers with all your Windows 7 computers, but if you don’t want it anymore, you can disable or enable the feature easily.

Why Doesn’t Disk Cleanup Delete Everything from the Temp Folder?

After you’ve used Disk Cleanup, you probably expect every temporary file to be completely deleted, but that’s not actually the case. Files are only deleted if they are older than 7 days old, but you can tweak that number to something else.

How to Use the BitDefender Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC

When you’ve got a PC completely infected with viruses, sometimes it’s best to reboot into a rescue disc and run a full virus scan from there. Here’s how to use the BitDefender Rescue CD to clean an infected PC.

Antivirus Slowing Your PC Down? Maybe You Should Use Exclusions

Protecting your computer with an antivirus solution is par for the course when you’re dealing with a Windows PC, but unfortunately it slows you down at the same time. Here’s how to improve your performance, at least a little bit.

How to Create Your Own Custom Windows System Administration Panel

Has it ever annoyed you to have to open lots of separate windows for Device Manager, Services, Event Viewer, and other system administration tools? Here’s how to pull them all together into your own custom admin panel.

Improve Battery Life in Windows 7 with the Built-In Power Troubleshooter

Anybody who has a Windows 7 laptop is going to be concerned with how to make the battery last longer, but did you realize there’s a built-in troubleshooting wizard in Windows 7 that helps you maximize your battery life?

The 10 Cleverest Ways to Use Linux to Fix Your Windows PC

You might not be ready to accept Linux as your desktop yet, but you can still use it to save your Windows PC—whether you need to reset passwords, recover deleted files, or scan for viruses, here’s how to do it.

How to Resize All Window Columns with a Single Keystroke

When you’re dealing with an application that displays data in a set of columns, it’s often frustrating to have to resize each column separately—but today we’ve got a great trick for you that resizes all the columns with a single keystroke.

What is SearchIndexer.exe and Why Is It Running?

You’re no doubt reading this article because you’re wondering what that SearchIndexer.exe process is all about, and why it’s chewing up a lot of RAM or CPU. Here’s the explanation you’re looking for, and how to deal with it.

The How-To Geek Guide to Windows 7 Media Center

If you’ve moved from XP to Windows 7, this might be the first time you’ve had access to Media Center. Here we’ve created a guide for our best tips, tricks, and tutorials for using Windows 7 Media Center.

Change Wireless Network Priority to Make Windows 7 Choose the Right Network First

If you’ve got multiple wireless networks or you’ve got one of those dual-band Wireless-N routers that have two separate networks, you might wonder how to tell Windows what network to try to connect to first. Here’s the explanation.

How To Play Your Favorite Retro Video Games on Your Windows PC

Do you miss the days of playing your favorite games on “old school” consoles like SNES or Sega Genesis? Today we take a look at several different emulators for your PC that will bring back the retro gaming nostalgia.

How to Install, Manage, and Delete Fonts on Your PC

If you have recently found some terrific fonts that you want to use on your Windows system, then getting them installed may not be something that you are familiar with. Today we show you how to manage those fonts with ease.

Make the Taskbar Buttons Switch to the Last Active Window in Windows 7

The new Windows 7 taskbar’s Aero Peek feature, with the live thumbnails of every window, is awesome… but sometimes you just want to be able to click the taskbar button and have the last open window show up instead. Here’s a quick hack to make it work better.

Change Your Wi-Fi Router Channel to Optimize Your Wireless Signal

If you live in an apartment complex you’ve probably noticed more than just the passive-aggressive network IDs that your neighbors use—very likely you’ve had problems with your wireless connections dropping out, or just not being as fast as you’d like. Here’s a quick fix.

Recover that Photo, Picture or File You Deleted Accidentally

Have you ever accidentally deleted a photo on your camera, computer, USB drive, or anywhere else? What you might not know is that you can usually restore those pictures—even from your camera’s memory stick.

Use Autoruns to Manually Clean an Infected PC

There are many anti-malware programs out there that will clean your system of nasties, but what happens if you’re not able to use such a program? Autoruns, from SysInternals (recently acquired by Microsoft), is indispensable when removing malware manually.

Stupid Geek Tricks: Tile or Cascade Multiple Windows in Windows 7

If you’ve got loads of windows open, and would like to tile or cascade just a couple of those windows, it’s a pain to minimize them, then unminimize the windows you want to tile, and then choose Tile from the taskbar context menu… but there’s a better way!

Stupid Geek Tricks: Enable the Secret “How-To Geek” Mode in Windows 7

We haven’t told anybody before, but Windows has a hidden “How-To Geek Mode” that you can enable which gives you access to every Control Panel tool on a single page—and we’ve documented the secret method for you here. (NOTE: Do NOT use this on Vista)

How to Create a Shortcut That Nukes Every Running Windows App

Have you ever had dozens of application windows open and wanted to just close them all? There’s a bunch of freeware apps that will close them all for you, but you don’t need extra software—and here’s how to do it.

Hi,
Emulators and Roms are definately legal. These are the platforms that let us play 8-bit classic Nintendo games on our PC. It was never illegal, is neve and will be never. Enjoy NINTENDO till you die. :)

DID YOU KNOW?

The highest elevation static trapeze act ever performed occurred on February 14, 2016 when trapeze artist Anna Cochrane of New Zealand performed a five minute routine dangling from a trapeze attached to a hot air balloon at an elevation range of 10,365 to 11,172 feet (3,159.25 to 3,405.23 meters) above sea level.